Quite how anyone can think this sort of quasi-libetarian bollocks is any way stopping people going out and robbing stuff off other people is beyond me. If anything, it'll only escalate violence. But then you only have to look at Grayling's recent history to realise he's utterly divorced from reality. Comparing Moss Side to The Wire - a fictional show, I'm led to believe - betrays his intense media training and his communications background.

Maybe the £100,000 Grayling claimed off the state for a flat in Pimlico for eight years means any one of us could nip over there and threaten to duff him up unless he gives us his money back.

To put the icing on the cake, he's a Man Utd fan, despite being born in London and brought up in Buckinghamshire. Mind you, he's hardly on his own there... but heaven help us when this reactionary bastard is Home Secretary next year. He makes Jack Straw seem like Kirk from Corrie.